


Outlaws

by shreddedpatches



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Established Relationship, M/M, Possessive Jim
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-07
Updated: 2015-06-07
Packaged: 2018-04-03 09:33:53
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,263
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4095955
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shreddedpatches/pseuds/shreddedpatches
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“We’ll leave when you get back,” Richard said quickly, the words starting to become less of a joke and more of a plan.  “You’ll collect the money from the job and we’ll go.”</p>
<p>“A life on the run,” Severin mused.  “Just you and me.  Like outlaws.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	Outlaws

“I wish—”

Richard regretted the words immediately.  They had had this conversation before and it always ended in the same place.  Retirement wasn’t an option for Severin, not when he had more or less signed his soul away to the devil.  “Who else would want to hire a broken old man like me?” Severin would joke, glancing down to the prosthetic poking out from his shorts.  “Someone’s got to pay for that big old country house we’re going to buy, and on that starving-actor salary of yours, it won’t be you.”

Perhaps Richard could have let it rest if Severin had been anything like Sebastian, but Severin wasn’t the one who shot his commanding officer.  He had _options_.  Well, he would have had them, had his psychologist not locked him away until the last of the explosions faded from his mind; would have had them, had Sebastian not picked him up from the hospital and told him that he knew a guy looking for a man like him, a man with his particular skill set.

Richard had tried to break the contract, once—asked Jim to let him go.  “Please, Jim, you don’t even need him,” he begged, trying to keep the tears from escaping his eyes, because crying was a sign of weakness, one which Jim would never respect.  “He’s not unbreakable like Sebastian, he—he could die, he could—”

“No,” Jim said coldly, barely looking up from his laptop.  “This is an insult to my generosity.  Ask me again and I will have him killed and turned into a set of leather restraints, which I will use to bind you whenever I fuck you from that moment on.  Are we clear?”

Severin’s workload quadrupled after that, and Richard was positive that Jim was determined to make the work be the death of him.  Images would creep into Richard’s mind at night when he lay in the bed, alone—images of Severin lying cold in a coffin, images of a closed-casket funeral (“his body was too mutilated for display,” the funeral director would say, and Richard would cry because he couldn’t even see the face he loved one more time), images of Jim wrapping his arms around Richard, saying “Richie, I’m so sorry” with a smile on his face, pressing in to steal a kiss that belonged to the dead man—

It made Richard want to throw up.

“You wish?” Severin prompted, turning around to face Richard, to pull him closer.  He adjusted the blankets, pulling them to rest underneath their chins so that they were a protective cocoon, one that maybe—just maybe—could protect them from Richard’s brother, just in the other room. 

“It’s nothing,” Richard breathed, snuggling closer to his lover and pressing a reassuring kiss to his collarbone.  Richard could not see Severin’s eyes, breathtakingly green, in the dark, but he could feel them on him nevertheless, and the thought made him shiver and smile. 

Severin chuckled—that deep, warm chuckle that, even now, always made Richard stop breathing for a moment.  “It’s something,” he countered, his voice lower than a whisper.  They both knew that they had to keep quiet when they were together—even when they were fucking they had to keep quiet, not because Jim didn’t know, but because if they were too loud, Jim would take it the wrong way (would remember that his twin had been stolen from him) and it would all be over in an instant.

“Just—never mind,” Richard said, because it wasn’t fair of him to bring it up again.  Of course Richard wished that Severin could retire, and he wasn’t the only one: Severin wanted nothing more than to stop risking his life for money, perhaps even more than Richard wanted it, but wishing would get them nowhere.  It was pointless to discuss. 

Even worse was how Severin wished things for Richard—wished that Jim would finally grow bored of fucking him, or that Richard would find a way to say ‘no.’  Wished that Richard would at long last be allowed to move out of Jim’s bed and into an apartment of his own.  Wishes that Richard more than reciprocated, and still could never fulfill, because he was an incestuous freak and he was sick and no matter how much he loved Severin, nothing, it seemed, could break the hold Jim had on him.

“Run away with me,” Richard said, murmuring the words into Severin’s chest.  It was a wild, fantastical thought, a half-joke, but so tantalizing that he couldn’t help but hope that Severin might say yes.

“Where would we go?” Severin asked, more than happy to play along for a moment.  He pulled Richard closer to him, kissing him on his forehead.

“I don’t know.  Anywhere.”  Anywhere would be fine, Richard thought, as long as Severin was there.

“I have a job in the morning.  Moscow, remember?”

Richard rolled his eyes; how could he forget?  “Screw the job,” he said, heart beating faster just at the thought of it.  “Let’s go right now.”

“We couldn’t just up and leave without planning,” Severin reminded him.  “He’d find us in less than a day.”

“Then we’ll leave when you get back,” Richard said quickly, the words starting to become less of a joke and more of a plan.  “You’ll collect the money from the job and we’ll go.”

“A life on the run,” Severin mused.  “Just you and me.  Like outlaws.”

“Yeah, except instead of robbing banks and killing people, we would feed the hungry and volunteer at animal shelters.”

They giggled simultaneously, ever so quiet.  After a pause, Severin spoke again, his voice soft and kind like it always was, and wasn’t that a miracle, Richard thought, because no one else ever spoke to him like that.  “We’ll figure it out when I get back.  It’ll just be a week.  We can wait that long, right?”

“Yeah,” Richard sighed, smiling.  He knew they were lying to each other—building a play-pretend world where they could forget that Jim was breathing down their backs at every moment—but the possibility that they _weren’t_ , that the plan was real and that they were going to run away in a week…well, Richard couldn’t think of anything else more beautiful.

“How long do you think we’ll make it?” he asked Severin, his eyes wide and inquisitive even though Severin couldn’t see him.  “A few months?  A year?  More than that?”

“Who knows?”  Severin pressed a brief kiss to Richard’s forehead again.  “I’ve got to get to sleep, Richie.  Got work in the morning.” 

He said it like he had any ordinary nine-to-five desk job, and the thought made something twist in Richard’s stomach.  “Wake me up before you go, okay?”

“It’ll be early,” Severin said, running his hand down Richard’s back. 

“I know, I just want to see you before you leave.  I—”

The words caught in Richard’s throat.  Severin—kind, beautiful, perfect Severin—kissed them away, smiling and saying, “Alright, Richard.  I’ll see you in the morning.”

“I love you, Sev,” Richard murmured.  His hands scrambled to find a way to hold Severin just a little more tightly, because maybe if he held him close enough, Severin would never have to leave again.

“I love you too,” Severin replied, and Richard kissed him again, slowly and sweetly and drunk on love.  There was nothing else to say—not that night, anyway, so Richard curled into the cavities of Severin’s body and dreamed of the perfect future they had planned and prayed that his nightmares wouldn’t catch up with him. 


End file.
